How did you get started cooking??

It was because of my mom.  First dish I tried to copy was her lasagna.  Still after 40 years I can't make it as good as hers.  But this taught me at an early age that you can prepare better food at home than in most restaurants.

Never had to cook for myself until I was in college. I'm an old farm kid and my Mom was  and still is a great cook. I didn't start REALLY cooking until I got my egg in July 2011. Now I do most of the cooking in my house. 

Started before I was a teenager, just because it was fun.  Still do by far most the cooking in the house.

Mom was a less than stellar cook, but there were six of us kids and we never went hungry. Dad was a equal parts briquettes and lighter fluid griller, and I remember the food fondly. I even recreate the foil wrapped burned skin potatoes on the Egg once in a while. Love the taste. After getting married, Mrs. TJ and I shared the cooking based on who got home from work first, and I did the basic grilling on the gasser, Weber for a time, and even fooled with a bullet smoker for a while. I did not become obsessed until I got the Egg. If I'm home, I now do 90 percent of the cooking, most on the Egg.

In the Cub Scouts.

Not that I'm a supreme chef and really don't do much in the kitchen, but really got into grilling because of my love for hunting and the outdoors.  I spend quite a bit of time in the hunting camp (though not as much as I used to), and got tired of eating hot dogs and peanut butter sandwiches.  Nothing like a really good steak, smoked brisket or grilled fajitas and some cold beer at deer camp under the stars. 

The first adult meal I made for myself was grilled pork chops, baked beans and grilled pineapple. I was about 20 years old, and up to that point, I had subsisted on sandwiches, cereal and spaghetti. I made the decision that I was now a grown up, and should eat like one. I fired up the propane camping grill on my apartment patio, and cooked the chops hot and fast. By sheer luck, I took them off at the right time and they turned out perfect. After about 15 more years, some world travel to appreciate other cultures and cuisines, a wife who could cook herself (thereby raising the bar on my own cooking), two boys and two years of big green egging and I finally feel like I know what I'm doing.

I like to eat cooked food.

A year in the freshman dorms was enough. They didn't make Indian food and I was done with eating Captain's Casserole. Sat my mom down and wrote all of her recipes into a notebook. That was 20 years ago. I'm almost happiest when I'm cooking. And I miss my mom a lot when I look up her recipes to cook.

Mom made sure I could at least cook eggs. Then, in scouts, learned to burn food over fire. After graduation, was shown how to make re-fried rice, saving me from a diet of beer, chocolate chip cookies and canned tuna. After marriage, me and the wife pretty much split cooking duties, so I learned how to make lots of things in an electric skillet and a slow cooker. Kept trying to make BBQ ribs. When Mom died, family dinners fell to us. My wife was an indifferent cook, so I took up most of that. After a few years, I found I really liked cooking, Also, got an Egg. Woo-hoo!

Mom and Dad split the summer between 8-9th grades. My sisters went with Mom and I went with Dad. We moved in with my grandmother for about 6 months and I learned a lot from her in the evenings. I grew 6" and put on 20 some pounds that summer in a major growth spurt. Dad and I moved out on our own and he worked a **** ton of hours to make ends meet. The only responsible thing to do was to pick up the house chores. He was an awesome soup and stew guy but not much else. I learned really quickly to cook for myself and him. I was a better cook than him within a year. Even learned to fry fish after I got caught skipping school and lied to him about it. Cleaned a whole five gallon bucket of crappie that night by myself and then had to wake him up in the middle of the night when I was done so he could show me how to cook some up for dinner.